McCain just sayin’: Would have delayed book if he were Gates

President Obama — criticized in a new book by his former Defense secretary Robert Gates — found an unusual source of sympathy on Sunday: John McCain.

The Republican senator from Arizona, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama, told CNN that Gates should have delayed publication of his new book, perhaps until the end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan.

“If I (had been) giving him advice, I would have waited,” McCain said on CNN’s State of the Union.

McCain also called Gates “one of the finest public servants that I’ve known,” and he has the right “to voice his views any time he wants to.”

Other lawmakers have also questioned the timing of Gates’ book.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., while a Republican critic of Obama, told CBS’ Face The Nation that “my preference would be that people would refrain from writing these sorts of things until the president is out of office because I think it undermines the ability to conduct foreign policy.”

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